Clare Valley

"Suddenly, just as I had consumed the last apple and drunk the last glass of wine, a terrible voice was heard at no great distance."

From the Flinders we proceeded down to Clare for a few nights before we start the trek home. The Clare Valley seems very green  after our trip to the centre. We hired bikes and did a 20Km ride on the Riesling trail on a fine but wintry day. All was going well till we stopped and tried a very nice Muscat after which we all felt like a nice little nap in front of the fire but we pushed on and had a very excellent lunch moment at a winery and tasted more fine Rieslings before cycling home. On the way we met some cyclists we had seen on the Stuart highway. They had ridden overland from France to Singapore then flown to Darwin and ridden from there. Suddenly my 20km with stops to try wine and eat lunch did not seem such an achievement.

The Flinders Ranges

"That is Sneffels—a mountain about five thousand feet in height, one of the most remarkable in the whole island, and certainly doomed to be the most celebrated in the world, for through its crater we shall reach the centre of the earth."

We proceeded on to the Flinders Ranges. Our days had turned grey, leeching most of the colour out of the ranges. We managed some good walks into the pound, along a Red Gum lined gorge, and up to an aboriginal rock painting site. We had a paid sunset tour where we shivered on a windswept exposed site drinking sparkling shiraz and eating Kangaroo while spotting Euros and big reds.

The Track Continues

" I discovered a spring of fresh water, in which we voluptuously laved our faces, hands, and feet."

We left Coward springs and visited the natural mound springs. These were like nothing I have ever seen, weird mounds in the desert with little verdant patches at the top surrounded by salt plains dissected by streams from the springs. We proceeded on to Lake Eyre South where we could see a sliver of water way off the shore. From there we want on via Curdimurka and had fun exploring an old Ghan station and railway bridge, Jen did some surface surveying archaeology there.
We stayed the night at Farina ruins. Farina ( Latin for Flour ) had great  plans in the 1800s to be a major area for wheat growing. Unfortunately they made these plans in a particularly wet year and never managed to grow wheat. The campsite was wonderful we shared a campfire with a  generous older couple who regaled us with tales of the Birdsville track but unfortunately interspersed these with blatantly racist comments.
Would have been fun to have our leftist rainbow warriors and right wing grey nomads at the same camp.

The Track

"That same day he deposited in the archives of the town the document he had found written by Saknussemm, and he expressed his great regret that circumstances, stronger than his will, did not allow him to follow the Icelandic traveler's track into the very centre of the earth. He was modest in his glory, but his reputation only increased."

Our rainbow warriors at the campsite shared with us the important info that Oodnadatta was out of unleaded. So instead of going there we took back roads via Mt Barry and the moon plains back through Coober Pedy. This allowed Alison to fulfill her lifelong dream to see the Dog Fence. Somewhere on this dirt my Anderson Plug worked its way out  dragged on the ground and was destroyed. Luckily an old Auto Electrician codger in a shed at Coober Pedy fixed it so I did not need to try out my very poor soldering skills. We then went on through William Creek ( after a required beer at the pub )  and stayed the night at Coward Springs.
Coward Springs was a delightful campsite at an oasis in the desert caused by a broken bore that spills out water.

Painted Desert

"All this while we were advancing at a rapid pace. The country we had reached was already nearly a desert. Here and there could be seen an isolated farm, some solitary bur, or Icelandic house, built of wood, earth, fragments of lava—looking like beggars on the highway of life. These wretched and miserable huts excited in us such pity that we felt half disposed to leave alms at every door."

We recovered Jen's bag and proceeded down the Stuart. We spent the night at Marla before setting out for the painted desert. We stayed on an isolated cattle station, Arckaringa Station . We had a bit of dirt to camp on, a tin shed with a toilet and shower, and a large nicely set out communal camp fire. We  bumped up the road to the painted desert which is a piece of spectacular bad-lands. We set up chairs and had a beer overlooking the plains at sunset with no-one for miles, magic. We came back and settled next to the camp-fire. You meet many different people around camp-fires. We met an interesting young photographer who had some personnel mission to go and photograph all the landscape affected by the nuclear tests at Maralinga. He had his Kiwi mum with him who plainly had had enough of outback living. Then another couple joined the fire who had just come up from the Roxby Down protests. They had firmly held beliefs and some concerning information about the Olympic dam mine, but interspersed it with too many conspiracy theories for our liking.

Alice

"Stapi is a town consisting of thirty huts, built on a large plain of lava, exposed to the rays of the sun, reflected from the volcano."

Alice Springs was supposed to be a one night stay where we recharged our depleted stores did our washing, bought a tent pole and did some shopping. We achieved all this together with a swanky dinner, so we felt pretty good. The next day we rocked up to the airport to perform a daughter exchange. Our eldest arrived, but her bag did not. We sent off our younger daughters, who had become an awesome camping team  to fly home. Alison held up a few hundred people trying to check in until the Qantas representative agreed to pay for another night's accommodation in town as locating us somewhere along the Oodnadatta track to deliver her bag when it arrived did not seem to appeal to them.

West MacDonnell Ranges

"The King of Cold had taken up his residence there, and made us feel his presence all night."

We spent the next three nights based at Ormiston Gorge in the West Macs. This is a fantastic place, my favorite so far. We watched Dingos fishing in the waterholes in the Gorge. We traveled to Palm Valley and the mighty Prado did some extreme 4WDing into this unreal valley. Anne and I did a walk up to the Ormiston Pound and back out the gorge. We had to cross the water up to our waists at one point. It was extremely cold, my heart and legs almost stopped moving.

The King Of Canyons

"Mechanically I crawled about, feeling the dry and arid rock. Never to my fancy had I ever felt anything so dry."

Next stop Kings Canyon. Another great walk another hundred photos.
Most sunsets my two little artists would sit and sketch quite often gathering a small crowd.

Olgas and Sounds Of Silence

"Now to tell the truth, at that moment I was far more interested in the question as to what was to constitute our dinner than in any problem of science; to me soup was more interesting than soda, an omelette more tempting than arithmetic, and an artichoke of ten times more value than any amount of asbestos."

I have time to catch up a bit as we finally have time and internet. The Olgas walk was good and we loved the zebra finches hopping around as we ate lunch. We splurged for Anne's birthday with the "Sounds of Silence" dinner where they took you out and served dinner under the stars with a "star guide". We shared dinner with friends from Canberra who made the night fantastic as we were both campers surrounded mostly by other guests from the more upmarket resorts at Yulara.

The Rock

"Magnificent, glorious!" I cried in a moment of involuntary enthusiasm, "What a spectacle, Uncle! Do you not admire these variegated shades of lava, which run through a whole series of colors, from reddish brown to pale yellow—by the most insensible degrees? And these crystals, they appear like luminous globes."

Today we made it to Uluru. Amazingly we ran into two families from Canberra that we know.
We went to the sunset and Catherine took another hundred photos.

Another Road day

We traveled to  Erldunda from Coober Pedy.
The mighty Prado keeps on going.
We keep meeting out gray nomad friends as we go.

We stopped at Erldunda as it was a bit far to Ayers Rock

Coober Pedy

"One would have fancied that the genii of romance were illuminating their underground palaces to receive the sons of men."

Coober Pedy was dusty, and the campground fairly ordinary. We had a good tour with Rudi the 70 odd year old miner who along with many other things told us four times that the two supermarkets stayed open to 7.

Day 4 Towards the centre

"The grandeur of the spectacle was undoubted, as well as its arid and deserted air"

For once, we had nothing to hold us off from leaving early. We passed many things to take pictures of, on our way to coober pedy.

We arrived at peak hour, to claim our small patch of dirt. Which was unsatisfactory, mum had to bravely face the overworked receiptionist (who had not had a cup of tea all day) too get us a slighty more suitible
Patch of dirt.

Catherine

Day 3 Its raining its pouring

"Neverless, the rain formed a cataract before this horizon of which we were in search, and to which we were rushing like madmen."

It poured overnight and did not let up till about 1130.
The forecast was for rain all week in southern SA so we changed plans and headed north. We still managed a 4km walk at Mt Remarkable, but then pressed on to a motel in lovely Port Augusta.

Day Two -

"At all events, there will be no very considerable delay," cried the impatient Professor

 Although we were on a strict schedule to make Mount Remarkable by sunset, things were not in our favour, including sleeping in  to the outrageous time of 7.30; the quarantine border guard on the Vic/SA border seizing all the fruit and vegetables from the $900 Coles shop due to the Victorian green snail slug; waiting for coffee in Renmark that did not arrive; and the need to stop for Catherine to take over 100 photos in a single day. We are camped instead in beautiful Crystal Brook tonight with good intentions to be out of here by 8.00.

Day One - Bogged already

"On the second of the month, at two in the morning, our precious cargo of luggage was taken on board the good ship Valkyrie. We followed, and were very politely introduced by the captain to a small cabin with two standing bed places, neither very well ventilated nor very comfortable. But in the cause of science men are expected to suffer."

We traveled well reaching our first nights camp at Lake Benanee. In our haste to find a campsite in the fading light we got bogged up to the hubs  in loose dry sand near the lakes edge. We had to unhitch the trailer and and break out the recovery gear to tow out the trailer luckily there as an elderly ex-scout leader to lend advice and teach us some bush skills.

Your portmanteau is not packed

"Where have you been wasting your time? Your portmanteau is not packed—my papers are not in order—the precious tailor has not brought my clothes, nor my gaiters—the key of my carpet bag is gone!"

2 Sleeps to go

"Looking back to all that has occurred to me since that eventful day, I am scarcely able to believe in the reality of my adventures. They were truly so wonderful that even now I am bewildered when I think of them."

          Jules Verne.


Welcome to our blog.
Two sleeps to go and we are almost ready. We have cleared our table tennis table where we had assigned each of us a quarter on which to place clothes. I have spent hours staring randomly at the trailer trying to work out what I have forgotten.